Do you work just as hard in the classroom as you do on the pitch/court?
Then you could look forward to potentially being named to the Academic All-American Team! But what is this team you ask?
The Academic All-American program aims to recoginse student athletes for their hard work and achievements in the classroom as well as on the field.
High-achieving students are only eligible to be nominated for the Academic All-American teams if they are a key player (either a starter or important reserve) and have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.30 or higher on a 4.0 scale. They also need to have competed in at least 50 percent of the team’s games in the position they have been nominated for.
There are three Academic All-American teams selected in every sport except football where there are only two teams selected. There is also an award for the Academic All-American Team Member of the Year award for each sport. Some big names athletes including Peyton Manning in 1997-1998, Christine Sinclair in 2005-2006 and Maya Moore in 2010-2011 have won this award.
Many schools take pride in the number of first team Academic All-American students they have as it represents that ideal mixture between academic and athletic performance. To date the top ten programs with the most Academic All-American student athletes include; The University of Nebraska (315 students), The University of Notre Dame (238 students), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (220 students), Pennsylvania State University (186 Students), Stanford University (182 students), Augustana College 153, Emory University (152 students), Nebraska Wesleyan University (148 students), University of Florida (129 students) and University of Texas (128 students).